Nelson: A Dream of Glory

The most comprehensive and thoroughly researched account ever written of Horatio Nelson's early career and rise to prominence.

A masterpiece... The flagship of the fleet, it leaves all others trailing in its wake

A magnificently-researched and thoughtful work which locates Nelson in a global context

One can say with confidence that this momumental tome is the finest yet written on England's great naval hero. Sugden's brilliant book is chock-full of fascinating details. And if the second volume turns out as well as this, his life of Nelson will be one of the historical masterpieces of our time

A massive, first-rate battleship of a book

Nelson's early life has been neglected by biographers, but Sugden has patiently reconstructed the early years. Sugden's account of Nelson's battles is richly absorbing, and his fluent, buoyant prose scuds along, carrying the reader with it. This must surely become a standard life

This is an enthralling book. Sugden's research took in no fewer than thirty-two archives in four countries. Yet he never lets his mastery of the sources slow down the narrative. So good is Sugden's writing, so fascinating his material, so judicious his comments, that you long for the concluding volume

Sugden's passion for his subject and astonishing research reveal the blossoming hero in a new light

The most detailed study of Nelson ever published

Detailed naval history, a wealth of previously ignored primary sources and an intriguing new take on a complex hero come together in John Sugden's must-read

The definitive life of the complex man who became Britain’s greatest hero.

Dr John Sudgen has pursued a busy trans-Atlantic career as a lecturer, senior research fellow and writer. He is the author of a series of acclaimed articles and books, including Sir Francis Drake, Tecumseh: A Life, which won the Distinguished Book Award of the American Society for Military History, and Blue Jacket, which won the Ohioana Award. This first volume of his definitive biography, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, was published to great critical acclaim in 2004 and was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize.

Nelson: A Dream of Glory is the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched account ever written of Horatio Nelson's rise to international fame. Giving us the private as well as the public man, it combines ground-breaking scholarship with a brilliantly vivid and compelling style.

Sir Francis Drake

The definitive life of one of Britain's great maritime heroes by the acclaimed author of Nelson: A Dream of Glory.

Excellent...It deserves to become the standard Drake life. His scholarship is impeccable

Excellent...he gives us throughout a highly sympathetic though not unbalanced portrait of a remarkable man

The scope of his book, and the skill with which he handles generally unreliable sources, is impressive...The accounts of the circumnavigation, the attack on Cadiz and the defeat of the Armada are a comprehensive, and as readable, as any that have yet appeared

Dr John Sugden has pursued a busy trans-Atlantic career as a lecturer, senior research fellow and writer. He is the author of a series of acclaimed articles and books, including Tecumseh: A Life, which won the Distinguished Book Award of the American Society for Military History, and Blue Jacket, which won the Ohioana Award, Nelson: A Dream of Glory, and, most recently, Nelson: Sword of Albion.

How well do you know the life of one of Britain’s great maritime heroes? 
 
Discover the truth behind a man who remains a legendary figure of history more than four hundred years after his death. 
 
Sir Francis Drake’s career is one of the most colourful on record. The most daring of the corsairs who raided the West Indies and Spanish Main, he led the English into the Pacific, and cirumnavigated the world to bring home the Golden Hind laden with Spanish treasure. His attacks on Spanish cities and ships transformed his private war into a struggle for surivival between Protestant England and Catholic Spain, in which he became Elizabeth I's most prominent admiral and marked the emergence of England as major maritime nation. 
 
‘Excellent...It deserves to become the standard Drake life. His scholarship is impeccable’ Frank McLynn, Sunday Telegraph

John Sugden

An absolutely excellent book. Every bit is beautifully judged

Sweeping, thrilling and psychologically acute, this second volume in John Sugden’s biography will hardly be bettered...this book is a monumental achievement. Some readers may be daunted by its length, but the investment of time and effort is unquestionably worth it... It is a tribute to Sugden’s skill that as Nelson lies stricken below desks, gasping for air, blood pouring into his chest, his officers biting back the tears and Hardy desperately wringing his hand, you pray that somehow, against all sense and reason, England’s greatest hero might just pull through

The Last eight years of his [Nelson’s] life dealt with in thrilling, monumental detail

There isn’t the slightest hint of modishness in Sugden’s study, which not only has all the old-fashioned scholarly virtues but is also, in the time-honoured tradition of naval history, a thumping good read

John Sugden’s utterly epic Nelson: The Sword of Albion is the longest, richest, most absorbing biography I’ve ever read… Sugden’s book is of Tolstoyan dimensions

An authoritative account of Nelson’s dramatic naval and personal life... In prose of admiral clarity Sugden binds together the strategy, tactics and of course battles, with powerful evocations of their tumult and horror, into lively narrative

John Sugden has written a splendid book about this great Christian warrior

Meticulous in its coverage, acute in its psychological assessments, and gripping in its accounts of his game-changing victories

Sugden has gone through a good deal of unpublished material and this two-volume work will remain standard for many years... it is also a good read

John Sugden’s achievement is to understand both Nelson the admiral and Nelson the tortured individual ... These two volumes exemplify the art of biography ... They are, and will remain, indispensible

A book of consistent clarity of writing and argument. It weaves a rich tapestry around the Admiral

A carefully nuanced yet ultimately admiring depiction of the Norfolk hero

Sugden has packed so much, but what is most refreshing about this book is that it is no hagiography. This is Nelson, the hero and the man, warts and all

The Sword of Albion

The Sword of Albion concludes the most comprehensive and intimate life of Nelson ever written, one that teems with a glittering array of sailors and civilians, heroes and villains, husbands, wives and lovers. 
 
 Here are Nelson's famous victories at the battles of the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar as well as his lesser-known yet equally gripping campaigns. But behind the military prowess is a man riven with paradoxes and schisms: the fighting admiral and the glory-hunter, the national hero and the indigent commoner, the family man and the adulterer. 
 
 This is an epic, triumphant and tragic life, and a masterpiece of the biographer's art.

John Sugden

Praise for Nelson

An absolutely excellent book. Every bit is beautifully judged

Sweeping, thrilling and psychologically acute, this second volume in John Sugden’s biography will hardly be bettered...this book is a monumental achievement. Some readers may be daunted by its length, but the invest ...

The Last eight years of his [Nelson’s] life dealt with in thrilling, monumental detail

An absolutely excellent book. Every bit is beautifully judged

Sweeping, thrilling and psychologically acute, this second volume in John Sugden’s biography will hardly be bettered...this book is a monumental achievement. Some readers may be daunted by its length, but the invest ...

The Last eight years of his [Nelson’s] life dealt with in thrilling, monumental detail

An absolutely excellent book. Every bit is beautifully judged

Sweeping, thrilling and psychologically acute, this second volume in John Sugden’s biography will hardly be bettered...this book is a monumental achievement. Some readers may be daunted by its length, but the invest ...

The Last eight years of his [Nelson’s] life dealt with in thrilling, monumental detail

Books by John Sugden

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter